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Microsoft Word banned?
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Microsoft Word banned?
Bangalore: The bad phase of Microsoft continues, as now Microsoft needs to pay $290 million or stop selling Word, after U.S. court upheld patent infringement charges alleged by i4i, a Canadian based company. i4i claimed that XML code used in Word 2003 and 2007 violates patents developed by them. Toronto-based i4i sells custom-XML add-ons to the ubiquitous word-processing software. Its unlikely that Microsoft will stop selling Word, so it must modify the software to comply with an injunction that takes effect January 11. The injunction, imposed in August 2009 by Judge Leonard Davis of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, applies only to copies of Word sold after January 11, starting with Word 2007 and extending to Word 2010. Microsoft must re-engineer the software within three weeks to strip out custom-XML support. It will also require pulling support for regular XML from the software. i4i says that it is pleased as it protected the relatively small company's development work. In its statement, Microsoft said that it already has been working hard to comply with the injunction. The company simply must remove the infringing features, and also work with computer manufacturers to make sure they distribute legal copies of Office. The company claims that the betas of Office 2010 and Word 2010 don't include technology made by i4i but contradicts its claims of unimportance by saying that it may demand an en banc rehearing in the Court of Appeals or a writ of certiorari, or a judicial review, from the Supreme Court.

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